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VANCOUVER — We’re sitting here talking about practice. Not a game, not a game, not a game, but we’re talking about practice. How silly is that?

That first paragraph was better when basketball star Allen Iverson said it after missing one. A practice, that is. Not a game, not a game, not a game. Iverson would have loved John Tortorella.

The Vancouver Canucks opened their National Hockey League homestand Monday against the Washington Capitals having last practised 10 days and four cities ago.

Practice, shmactice. The Canucks didn’t need it on their seven-game road trip when they went 5-1-1. And they didn’t need it on the weekend, when coach Tortorella gave players another two days off to take advantage of the autumn sunshine at home, allowing them to winterize their lawn mowers and rake leaves, or just sleep.

Of course, the Canucks have at least once before taken both days off between games during the regular season. It was called Christmas, 2012.

But they have never, as far as anyone can recall, gone 10 days in-season without a practice.

“Never, ever,” captain Henrik Sedin said after Monday’s game-day skate (the Canucks still do those). “And I’m loving it. It’s easy to re-energize and get focused for games when you’re winning. But when you’re losing, you’re not going to have 10 practice-free days. So winning and resting goes hand-in-hand.”

“We’ll practise tomorrow,” Tortorella promised. Win or lose.

Remembering — and how could you not? — that this is Tortorella’s first season in charge of the Canucks and players are adapting not only to a new system but a whole new coaching schema, it’s not like they don’t need to practise.

But rest has been more important.

Besides playing nine of its first 13 games on the road, which included a span of five games in seven nights, a team whose forward depth was already suspect has lost more workers than BlackBerry.

Fortunately, the sparkling top of the lineup has been largely uninjured and players like Hank and Danny Sedin, Ryan Kesler and amazing reclamation project Mike Santorelli have been playing eye-popping minutes, career-high minutes.

These minutes are unsustainable long-term. And so, alas, is a practice-free schedule.

But the ice time in games and down time between them are facets of this exciting, new age for Canuck players. Their job under Tortorella is a carnival ride at the moment. It would be far less fun had the Canucks gone into Monday’s game at 4-8-1 instead of 8-4-1, but every day is an adventure.

Kesler is playing right wing. Santorelli is centring the second line. David Booth was scratched for a game. Andrew Alberts played one shift. Young defencemen Chris Tanev and Ryan Stanton have played many shifts. Rookie goalie Eddie Lack has already played three games and won twice.

There hasn’t been a dull minute for the Canucks, even when they weren’t practising, even in Columbus.

Tortorella has everyone’s attention.

“As a player, you love it,” Henrik Sedin said. “You come to the rink every day and you’re not sure what’s going to happen. There are a lot of meetings, a lot of information. You’re on your toes every day. And going into games, you never know.”

Defenceman Kevin Bieksa said: “We’re just getting more comfortable, I think, and getting a better feel for how he likes to run the team and what he likes and what he doesn’t like. Don’t be late for meetings — we learned that one. And he doesn’t like to lose. That one game we lost (in Columbus) it wasn’t a lot of fun for a day and a half.

“We knew there were going to be a lot of changes. An alpha male like Torts, he’s got his way of doing things. Right away, we’ve been open to that and embraced it and it has been good.”

The Canucks, alas, will probably practise twice this week. And ice times may even start to flatten out.

Key winger Alex Burrows returned to the lineup Monday after missing 3½ weeks due to a cracked bone in his foot.

“I don’t go into the game and say ‘I’m going to play those guys,’” Tortorella said of the many minutes heaped on a few. “It’s an open book to me and it’s up to the players to show me: ‘Are you going to allow me to feel I can put you in those situations?’ As each game goes by, it’s that type of call.”

Does he ever get coach’s remorse when he looks at the stat sheet and sees, for instance, that Kesler logged 28:04 last Tuesday on Long Island or that the Sedins set career-highs two nights later in New Jersey with ice times of 25:53 and 25:25?

“Not too much,” Tortorella said. “I’ve never had that. I’ve had remorse the other way, when I’ve looked at the (game sheet) and said: ‘I screwed that guy; he should have played more.’”

Burrows said last week he wanted one full practice before playing. Yeah, and he probably wants to sing The Rose on American Idol when the show goes to Mars.

“I had a one-hour private lesson yesterday,” Burrows smiled when asked about re-entering the lineup without his practice. “There are so many games, we might as well save our energy for game days.

“I guess what surprises me is the last few years the worry has been: Oh, we don’t have a third-line centre or we need another centre. This year, we’re going through injuries and Torts is not afraid to just throw his three best players on a line. I kind of like that. They pull the load and the other guys find ways to help. It’s something that’s a little outside the box, but it seems to work for us right now.”

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Every Canucks day a carnival ride under Tortorella

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